Museum exhibit highlights the 'Lincoln' local connection

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - Earning 12 Academy Award nominations, the film Lincoln has proven to be a cinematic hit.

For those living in the Cape Fear Area, the movie might have an even stronger appeal.

As Cape Fear Museum curators showed our Carolina in the Morning crew Monday, Wilmington and Fort Fisher play an integral part of the last four months of Lincoln's presidency.

The Cape Fear Museum is hosting a very rare exhibit called The Fragments of War.

The museum curator said visitors will be able to see rarely-displayed artifacts, including a commission signed by Abraham Lincoln, local man Colonel Gaston Meares' hat, a flask presented to an officer of the U.S. Colored Troops who served at Fort Fisher, pieces of fabric that came through the Union blockade of the port of Wilmington, and a secession cockade made by a local woman who supported North Carolina's secession from the United States.

The exhibit also details the U.S. capturing of Fort Fisher and Wilmington, which is mentioned in the film.